Each territory in a game has two pieces of vital information: (1) the owner of that territory; and (2) the number of units in that territory.

The fog settings dictate the conditions under which that information becomes available to players.  There are three different settings dictating how players gain access to that information: (A) it is freely provided to everyone (e.g. no fog); (B) only to players who control a territory that has an attack, fortify-only, or view-only border to that territory; (C) only to players who attack that territory.

Put together, this means there should be 9 different fog settings to account for every combination of settings and type of information (see my cool table).

1 | 2

A | A = everyone sees ownership and # units of all territories (classic no fog)

A | B = everyone can see who owns the territory, but # units visible only via border (light fog)

A | C = everyone can see who owns the territory, but # units visible only via attack

B | B = ownership and # units visible only via border (medium fog)

B | A = ownership visible only via border, but everyone can see # units

B | C = ownership visible only via border, but # units visible only via attack (Heavy fog)

C | C = ownership and # units visible only via attack (Total fog)

C | A = ownership visible only via attack, but everyone can see # units

C | B = ownership visible only via attack, and # units visible only via border

Currently, WarGear only offers 4 of these 9 possible combinations -- I would like to see it offer all 9. Furthermore, I would like the option to set the type of information you can view for each individual view-only border. I picture a drop down menu for whether or not you can see the unit count, and whether or not you can see the ownership. I think this would allow for some really cool new map concepts, including levels of fog that vary depending on which view-only borders you have access to.

B | A = ownership visible only via border, but everyone can see # units 

C | A = ownership visible only via attack, but everyone can see # units 

C | B = ownership visible only via attack, and # units visible only via border

How very interesting... these never occurred to me, but could make for some interesting gameplay.

I don't care for your B | A option. How would this appear on the game board? Unit numbers splashed across the checkered background of an invisible territory?

I see your point that completeness is a goal, but this seems to get kinda confusing.

Also, isn't there another heavier fog setting? I'm in a game where I can't tell who owns a territory even after I conquer it.

They never occurred to me either until I thought to tabulate the possibilities.

asm wrote: I don't care for your B | A option. How would this appear on the game board? Unit numbers splashed across the checkered background of an invisible territory?

I see your point that completeness is a goal, but this seems to get kinda confusing.

Also, isn't there another heavier fog setting? I'm in a game where I can't tell who owns a territory even after I conquer it.

I would envision a number floating in the checkered background, probably with a white halo around it so you could read it.

As for an even heavier fog setting, I suppose we could add a D to the list, which would be a setting such that players only know ownership and unit count for territories that they control. In other words, if you attack a territory or it attacks you, you know how many you lose and how many it loses, but not who controls it or how many total units there are.

I'm saying that's happening to me now: http://www.wargear.net/games/player/3599

Unless it's just weirdness resulting from fog interacting with at least one opponent having abandoned the game.

Let's not over think this here. Fog is an effect used in games (overused IMO) that should either be based on the theme of the map or because it gives a different dimension to the strategy. Often I find that if you take a standard map and add fog all you are doing is taking away the amount of strategy a player uses and adding in more chance taking and dumb luck. Here there are View only borders so the strategy of fog games is increased but do we really need 9 different kinds? That's like the Eskimos having 100 different words for snow (they don't actually).
Let's try to keep stuff like this simple. Just because things can be changed doesn't mean they should be. Once a better system of graphical board viewing is available I think a lot of that will clear up.

asm wrote: I'm saying that's happening to me now: http://www.wargear.net/games/player/3599

Unless it's just weirdness resulting from fog interacting with at least one opponent having abandoned the game.

That seems like a bug to me, it should be Total Fog (which currently means you can never seen who owns what), but even I can see some territories and I'm not in the game.

RiskyBack wrote:  Often I find that if you take a standard map and add fog all you are doing is taking away the amount of strategy a player uses and adding in more chance taking and dumb luck.

That depends.  Part of the idea with fog is that a good player will be able to mostly ignore it, since they can predict where their opponents units will be based on experience and cues.

Magpie wrote:

RiskyBack wrote:  Often I find that if you take a standard map and add fog all you are doing is taking away the amount of strategy a player uses and adding in more chance taking and dumb luck.

 

That depends.  Part of the idea with fog is that a good player will be able to mostly ignore it, since they can predict where their opponents units will be based on experience and cues.

I must strongly disagree with you on this point, Risky.

In addition to what Magpie says, the value of fog comes into play with the introduction of view-only borders. Forcing players to incorporate information-gathering into their gameplan opens up a whole new dimension to strategy. Now instead of choosing between offense and defense, players also may have to choose between learning more about their enemies positions or attacking/defending blindly. Different types of fog settings impact the nature of the choices players must make, and the types of information they must go about gathering.

I believe there are mapmakers here (including myself, Cumberdale, Wallace if he ever comes over to WG, and others as yet unknown) who would find really exciting ways to employ these different types of fog. They won't necessarily all be used with the same frequency, but I for one am interested to explore the possibilities.

Heaven forbid if I ever come up with anything interesting.

I just don't think that we need to try and re-invent every wheel. Fog is Fog, should be self-explanatory aside from the few degrees.

Oval wheels. They're the wave of the future!

You come up with many interesting ideas, clearly. I didn't include you in the list because you said you weren't interested =P

I would probably be on the side that Fog works well enough as is, rather than try and throw more things in there. WG has one less Fog setting than WF, so that could be incorporated, and I would like to see Attacks in Total Fog to display the defending territories player information, finally, a customizable Fog for selected territories could be cool, but beyond that (okay that may be quite a bit already) I think messing around with Fog too much can create just more confusion.

With the different types of borders on WG, I think Map Designers have quite a bit of untapped possibilities and can find some ways to play with the current Fog settings. I'm guessing tom is a Fog fan though (he played a lot of Fog games on WF, a lot of his Medals are Fog games, and the ability to Fog Ranked games here).

My Quick Replies sometimes aren't so quick :P.

I like simplicity, but I have to side with Kjeld on this one. Reasoning is that down the road, someone is going to ask for option B|A, and someone else is going to ask for option C|A, etc. It would be much better to code in all of the possible values for 'fog' now and have done with it, even if you only initially make 4 or 5 of them available.

I think we have to keep in mind the necessity of appealing to a broader audience. Splitting hairs and subdividing options and incorporating advanced settings for everything is great for us; we've (and when I say 'we' I mean 'you guys') been experimenting with pushing boundaries of UI's, design tools, and so forth for months or years now. We see 9 possible gradients of fog settings and go 'cool, I bet I could do something with that.' Users that sign up for a Risk website see 9 possible gradients of fog settings and go 'uhhhh... this is too complicated' and go sign up for Conquer Club.

I like the idea of completeness for designers, but I agree with asm that the increased complexity level for players (and not nice complexity, just weird why the hell can't I see the owner of that territory with this specific fog setting complexity) is not that great.

There are some bugs with the way fog is working at present at the higher levels (Heavy and Total) that I need to work out and fix.

At the risk of complicating this issue still further, has anyone considered the possibility of making fog an attribute of countries rather than borders?

Red Baron wrote: At the risk of complicating this issue still further, has anyone considered the possibility of making fog an attribute of countries rather than borders?

I like this idea, and have had many ideas in the past that would benefit from it. I've shied away from it mostly because, as you suggest, it might overcomplicate the issue, but perhaps it would be fun enough if used sparsely to be worth having around. I'd suggest a new term for it, though. Shadows or Cover of Darkness or something -- just to separate it a bit from 'fog'.

Cramchakle wrote: I'd suggest a new term for it, though. Shadows or Cover of Darkness or something -- just to separate it a bit from 'fog'.

I like it.  I hadn't thought of making the two types of fog separate things.  The use I'd have for it would be obscure the number of troops lurking in forest areas, so a name suggestive of shadow would be very appropriate.  Or perhaps 'camouflage.'

Nice idea - added it to the gameplay enhancements list. So would this would work like the max units level, in that the more restrictive fog setting applies? Or would it override the game fog setting completely?